


Contingency Plan

by Kiraly



Category: The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Gen, Huddling For Warmth, Missions Gone Wrong, Post-Network Effect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:41:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26655313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiraly/pseuds/Kiraly
Summary: When students from the Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland take a field trip to a seed vault on a frozen planet, their SecUnit/Security Consultant/Babysitter makes all kinds of plans to ensure everyone gets home safely. Of course, things don't go exactly as planned.
Relationships: Amena & Murderbot (Murderbot Diaries), Asshole Research Transport & Murderbot (Murderbot Diaries)
Comments: 69
Kudos: 199





	Contingency Plan

**Author's Note:**

> So [Iztarshi](https://iztarshi.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr made a [post](https://worldsentwined.tumblr.com/post/627615456742735873/minutia-r-iztarshi-please-consider-murderbot) about Murderbot and the cuddling for warmth trope, and because that is like catnip for me I couldn't resist writing it. Of course, the idea got out of hand, as my ideas so often do.
> 
> A few things:  
> I decided on the name "Security Consultant Sree" based on an answer from the [Instagram AMA with Murderbot and ART,](https://www.tor.com/2020/04/24/feelings-redacted-what-happened-when-murderbot-and-art-talked-to-instagram/) which is also where the name of the show referenced comes from. Since both "Eden" and "Rin" have some history attached to them, I figured Murderbot might be reluctant to use them again.
> 
> A large portion of the inspiration from this fic came when I read an essay about the Svalbard Global Seed Vault by happenstance; if you too wish to experience a strange longing for a seed-filled hole in an isolated frozen land, check the end notes for some reading material.

We shouldn’t have come to this stupid planet. (I don’t like planets. I also don’t see the point in taking a “field trip” to a research station when the humans running the station are perfectly willing to share their data from a safe distance.) But the humans wanted to go, because it would be “educational” for the students to see the work in person. Or something. I started watching episode 142 of  _ The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon  _ halfway through the conversation when it became clear that they were going through with it no matter what I said.

_ Don’t sulk,  _ ART said in our private channel,  _ at least you get to go with them.  _

_ I don’t want to go with them,  _ I said,  _ and neither do you _ .  _ No one should be going. They have a whole research vessel for doing research.  _ ART would know, it  _ is  _ the research vessel.

_ Research and teaching,  _ ART corrected.  _ This is the teaching part.  _

I don’t think I like the teaching part. Adolescent humans are difficult enough as individuals. In groups, every irrational, hormone-driven impulse multiplies like self-replicating killware. They put stress on my already faulty risk assessment module. (I can’t predict what they’re going to do, because even  _ they  _ don’t know what they’re going to do until they’ve already blown something up.) ART knows how I feel about adolescent humans and planets. I would expect more sympathy from it except, no, I wouldn’t, it’s an asshole. 

_ Yes, great, we can teach them how to get lost on a frozen desert planet,  _ I said.  _ I’m sure there are plenty of abandoned mining installations for them to wander into. That will be educational.  _

ART ignored my sarcasm.  _ The Fowler-Tefre Interplanetary Seed Vault is a unique example of botanical archiving and cooperation between political entities. Repurposing a former mining installation was part of their sustainability plan.  _

_ I read the brochure, you don’t have to quote it at me.  _ Well, I  _ downloaded  _ it, anyway. I put it in my temporary storage with the maps, personnel lists, environmental data, and anything else from the planetary feed that looked useful. I also downloaded a few hundred hours of new media, though far too much of it was books and documentaries about the history of the seed vault. Some of the serials might have been interesting, except the last thing I needed was to watch media about explorers trying to survive on an ice planet when I was about to take a bunch of humans to an ice planet. 

_ The students will enjoy it.  _ ART softened its tone, the way it did when it was talking about adolescent humans.  _ A state of the art facility, designed for and dedicated to caring for the future. It will be good for them to see that. And you’ll be there to keep them from falling in an unused mining installation.  _ It sent over a video: cut-together shots of me dragging various humans away from disasters, usually right before someone almost died.  _ I’m sure you’ll keep them safe.  _

I never know how to respond to that kind of thing when someone says it to me sincerely. Luckily, this was coming from ART. It’s still uncomfortable to hear, but anyone would feel that way with so much concentrated processing power looming aggressively in the feed. ART trusts me, for some reason, but we don’t  _ talk  _ about that so instead it sends me embarrassing video of Murderbot’s Greatest Hits. I prefer to use sarcasm.  _ Thanks for the vote of confidence, asshole.  _

ART didn’t say anything, just started a file in our shared workspace called  _ FieldTripPlan.file.  _ I waited for two minutes—long enough to annoy ART a little, not so long that it would tattle on me to one of the humans—then renamed it to  _ IceHellSurvivalPlan.file  _ and got to work.

* * *

It was a good plan. The crew members in charge of teaching weren’t going to send the whole group of students with only a SecUnit to babysit. (They trust me to keep them safe, which, again, is weird but kind of nice. No one should trust me to manage interpersonal conflicts though—adolescent humans have a lot of interpersonal conflicts—and anyway I don’t want to.) So they split the students into groups and assigned each group a teaching crew member. ART and I assigned me to make sure the whole group got there and back without anyone getting eaten or shot or kidnapped.

It  _ was  _ a good plan, until it wasn’t.

The problem with trying to plan for adolescent humans is that, like I said, they don’t do anything you expect so they’re almost impossible to predict. Even if your risk assessment module actually works. So ART and I try to work around that by having a plan, and then another plan, and plans for all of the ways those plans can go wrong. Which means, of course, that by the time someone deviates from the good plan, we’re working with increasingly shitty ones. 

Plan A01: StudentGroups 1-6 visit the Fowler-Tefre Interplanetary Seed Vault with their designated crew supervisors, rotate through the learning modules, have a meal, and return to the shuttles by 16:00, local planetary time. Shuttles launch no later than 16:45 to avoid the regularly occurring dust storm that sweeps over the research site at 17:15. Everyone stays with their group and follows instructions, no one talks to Murderbot about emotions or personal issues, no one gets injured or killed. (Those last two points are not related, but I wish the humans thought they were). 

Since Plan A01 is more of a hope than an actual plan, we also have Plans A02-A10 which cover minor deviations, such as humans taking their meal break earlier or attempting to talk to me about their problems. (I said this was not a minor deviation, but ART overrode me). Plans B01-B07 involve equipment malfunctions, students forgetting their cold weather gear, or problems at the facility itself that prevent them from completing the tour as scheduled. Plans C01-C12 cover minor injuries, illness, and other incidents that require StudentGroups to combine so a crew member can take affected students back to ART earlier than planned. 

(I try very hard not to think about Plan D01: Major Injury or Illness, because I really don’t want it to happen. Normally  _ I’m  _ the one getting majorly injured. And we don’t talk about Plan E). Of course, no matter how many plans we came up with, none of them prepared me for what ended up happening.

It started with an interpersonal conflict. (Shocking, I know.) Specifically, it started with an interpersonal conflict within a group of adolescent humans and augmented humans (again, such a surprise). It started, whether she admits it or not, with Amena.

That  _ was  _ a surprise, on the first day of the teaching mission. ART hadn’t shared the finalized student list with me, saying there were some last-minute changes and it was taking care of the security clearances. That should have tipped me off, because ART normally lets me run those (my paranoia is good for a few things). But this time it didn’t, and I didn’t really want to read through a bunch of application essays about the accomplishments of adolescent humans, so I left it to ART. And then the students arrived and a familiar signature popped up in my feed.

_ Hi Third Mom!  _

I was so startled my performance reliability dropped three percent. Not that I was doing anything that required optimal performance; I was in my cabin watching old episodes of  _ Timestream Defenders Orion  _ while my drones followed the new arrivals around the ship. I didn’t even need to be doing that, since ART has secret cameras everywhere, but it gave me something to do besides worry about all the new humans and how I was going to act around them. 

_ ART,  _ I said, still in Amena’s channel because I could feel it looming over my shoulder anyway,  _ what the fuck? _

Amena laughed over the feed, and ART sounded smug when it said,  _ I thought you would be happy to see her. _

_ You still could have told me she was coming.  _ I turned my attention to Amena.  _ What are you doing here?  _

I could see her now, smiling and waving at one of my drones as she passed off her bag to one of ART’s. ART must have pinged her with my location, because she bypassed all the new student orientation materials and headed directly for my cabin. (Yes, it is nice to have my own cabin like a normal member of the crew, and yes, it is deeply weird). 

“I’m a student at the Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland,” Amena said when she reached my door, 10 seconds after ART helpfully sent me her enrollment information. “Some of the courses look really interesting.”

“More interesting than taking the same courses on Preservation?” By some system I still don’t understand (because I don’t care enough to find out) everyone on Preservation Station receives their education and vocational training for free. Amena already had an internship; it was how she’d ended up on the survey that led to ART kidnapping us. 

“I wanted to study outside of Preservation, and my parents wanted me to finish my degree somewhere safe. This was the best option,” she said, spreading her hands to include ART in her assessment. “They knew you and ART would look out for me. My second mom says hi, by the way.”

Dr. Mensah, Amena’s second mother, is my favorite human. She stays calm under pressure, even when someone is trying to kill us (it happens a lot) and she was the first human to really trust me. I didn’t understand why she would agree to Amena’s plan, after what happened the last time Amena left Preservation...or why Amena was bringing her up. Maybe she was trying to distract me. 

“Anyway, since you haven’t been back home for a while, I brought you something.” Amena reached into her pocket and pulled out a data chip. “These are all the new serials that came out since you left, I marked a couple that Ratthi said you might like.”

Okay, she was definitely trying to distract me.

“You can’t tell the other students what I am,” I said, taking the data chip. “Or what ART is.” That was the main reason I was worried about the influx of adolescent humans. The crew all know about me, but my contract with the university has a privacy clause for a reason. 

Amena rolled her eyes. “I know, they made me sign a bunch of forms. I’m not pretending I don’t know you though, that would be weird. I’ll tell people you’re an old family friend.”

“Your old family friend named…?” I prompted. If she and ART plotted this together, I assumed she had taken the time to memorize my fake personnel file. 

“Third Mom.”

This was going to be a long trip.

* * *

As it turned out, Amena didn’t have any problems treating ART or me the way she was supposed to, at least not in public. She still poked us in our private feed, but not where the other humans could see. And she made friends with the other adolescent humans in her bunk room, so she didn’t  _ need  _ to hang around the antisocial security consultant or chat with the bot pilot if she wanted company. But friendship is hard even for humans, apparently.

_ Kewan is driving me crazy! _

I paused the episode of  _ Worldhoppers  _ I was running in the background while ART and I went through our final pre-field trip checklist.  _ Amena, this channel is supposed to be for emergencies. _

She ignored me like she always did when I said that.  _ They think they know everything! Just because their third parent worked at a local seed bank for a while. Do I know everything about planetary leadership because  _ my  _ second mom did that? No! _

I could feel ART’s amusement leaking through the feed. 

_ What?  _ I asked.

_ She wants your parental advice, Third Mom. _

_ Fuck you, ART. _

To Amena, I said,  _ Do you want me to push Kewan out of the airlock? _

_ No! _

_ Do you want me to drop them down an abandoned mine shaft? _

A pause.  _ No. Well, maybe a little. _

_ Do you remember what it says in paragraph 5, subheading d of my contract?  _

ART pushed the contract file into her feed, in case she hadn’t read it the first fourteen times we had this conversation.

Amena’s sigh echoed through the feed. “ _ Any Client concerns of a personal nature which do not pose significant risk of bodily harm shall be directed to Security Consultant Sree’s crew liaison or other appropriate personnel. Security Consultant Sree is not responsible for settling conflicts which are not a threat to security.” That’s not fair though, ART is your crew liaison! And I’m not your client, I’m your friend. _

_ If Kewan tries to push you out of an airlock, I’ll handle it. As your...friend.  _ (I still don’t like that word.)  _ Until then, please direct all personal issues to my crew liaison. _

ART, impatient to get back to  _ Worldhoppers,  _ said,  _ Play nice.  _ It didn’t say “or else”, just implied it so strongly that it might as well have.

_ Fine.  _ Amena cut her feed. I started the episode again.

In hindsight, I really shouldn’t have given her all those ideas about what to do with Kewan.

* * *

_ 15:39, Local Planetary Time _

All StudentGroups had completed their sixth learning module and were gathered in the communal area for their meal break when I got a ping from one of my drones. I had set most of them to follow the StudentGroups around—some areas had limited camera access—and the others to capture footage of the facility. Not that I care about agriculture or whatever ‘botanical archiving’ is, but I was used to recording everything my clients said and did and old habits die hard. (Also, I thought ART might like to see the place, but don’t tell it I said that.) It was harder than it should have been, because the feed access was spotty in places and my drones kept cutting out. Maybe because the facility was built in a reclaimed mining installation; underground tunnels surrounded by solid stone are not known for feed reliability. I don’t know, the point is my side project was more challenging than I planned and I was a little distracted. 

The majority of the drones were in the communal area, watching the humans eat so I didn’t have to. I left a few of them to guard the perimeter (another old habit, useful for staying alive) and they were making a slow circuit of the public areas. All except for this one, which suddenly popped up outside the perimeter, on a part of the map marked “dangerous, do not enter”, and pinged with increasing urgency the farther away it moved. Then it cut out. I still had its last location, and I could play back the recording to see who it had followed into the restricted area. I didn’t need to, though. Unfortunately, I knew exactly who that drone was assigned to watch. 

I opened a channel with Iris.  _ I have a situation to report. _

She sat up straighter in her chair and glanced at me, then started to stack her empty meal containers.  _ What kind of situation? _

I cut together some video and sent her the file. First, a group of students followed their crew member down a hallway, two of them having a whispered argument in the back. Next, a clip of the same two students ducking into a side corridor. The drone stayed close enough to pick up audio.

_ Amena: “This is stupid, we already saw the nursery and the greenhouse and it wasn’t there. You’re lying.” _

_ Kewan: “I’m not! Everyone knows they don’t put the best stuff out where the public can see. My third parent told me they have one, and I’m going to find it.” _

_ Amena: “Well Third Mom is going to kill us as soon as someone notices we’re missing, if they haven’t already. All you have to do is admit you’re wrong, then we can go to lunch like everyone else.” _

_ Kewan: “No way, it’s definitely here. Anyway, I thought you were an experienced surveyor, don’t tell me you’re scared of making the security consultant mad. We’ll find what we’re looking for and be back before anyone notices.” _

Wrong, Kewan. Whatever they were looking for, they’d been gone for long enough that it wasn’t just me who was going to be mad. 

_ Of all the—they should know better!  _ Iris’s exasperation bled through the feed.  _ Hang on, I’ll turn my group over to Matteo and we can go after them.  _

That was in line with plan C07: Retrieving Missing Students From Non-Dangerous Areas. There was a problem, though.  _ It’s outside the safe zone. The feed keeps going down, they’re too far from the main hub.  _ I wanted Iris on the shuttle home no matter what happened. _ I’ll go alone. Make sure everyone else gets to the shuttle on time, I’ll send status reports. _

Iris frowned like she wanted to argue, but looked at the countdown timer I’d put in her feed and sighed.  _ All right. Here, wait.  _ She came over and handed me a pair of meal packs. One of them was tagged with Kewan’s dietary needs. “Give them these in case time is tight getting back, or...in case. They didn’t get to eat lunch.” In the feed, she added, _ Be careful, I don’t want to be the one to tell Peri we lost you.  _

I wouldn’t want to have to break the news to ART either. I already wasn’t looking forward to explaining how I lost two students, even if I found them right away. So I put the meal packs in my bag, gathered my spare drones, and started to move toward their last known position. I wasn’t running—yet—because that makes humans nervous and I didn’t want the facility staff to notice me. It was easy enough to convince their SecSystem to let me through, but humans are harder to talk to. 

I passed through the string of learning modules and public exhibits until I found a door marked “authorized personnel only”. The hallway on the other side looked more or less the same as the public areas, but with environmental controls set lower—dim light, temperatures that didn’t bother me but would be uncomfortable for a human. This wasn’t the research facility, set up to grow plants and educate humans. This was the part that gave the place its name. A stasis box, cold storage for a galaxy’s worth of seeds. The vault. 

As I reached the first intersection, the drone started transmitting again. 

_ Kewan: “...just a little farther, then—” _

_ Amena: “No, Kewan. At this point it’s clear you have no idea what you’re talking about, we should go back! I can’t reach the feed, if we get turned around again we could end up going in circles until Third Mom comes for us.” _

_ Kewan: “Oh, so you  _ are  _ scared. You think the security consultant is going to track us down and yell at us.”  _

_ Amena: “I think I’m going to get stuck in a freezing mine shaft with an idiot who didn’t download a map.” _

Right, this seemed like a conversation that was going nowhere. I used the drone to extend my range and tapped both of their feeds.  _ What are you doing? _

Kewan yelped and dropped the light source they were carrying. Amena flinched, then relaxed.

“We...we got separated from the group and turned around, we’re trying to find our way back,” Kewan lied. 

Amena snorted. I had to agree; that was a terrible attempt, even for a human. “It’s not  _ stupid,  _ unlike  _ some people,”  _ she said. “Kewan said this place has a rare plant that can counteract the effects of alien remnants, so we went to look for it. But there’s nothing down here but locked vaults and storage rooms.”

That was true; my maps and scans didn’t show anything big enough to be a specialized lab facility for alien plants. I dropped a map in the feed, helpfully labeled with dots that said “You are here” and “You  _ should  _ be here” with the best route back drawn between them.  _ And what were you going to do once you found it? Feed Kewan to it so they’d stop annoying you?  _ If there even was a plant like that—it wasn’t something  _ I  _ had ever heard of, but then again my education modules are shitty—I doubted it would be hidden all the way down here unless it was dangerous. 

“No!” Amena folded her arms. “Because it’s not  _ real,  _ they’re making it up.”

“I’m telling you, it’s real!” Kewan stamped their foot and stretched up on their toes to get into Amena’s face. “And  _ I’m  _ going to find it!” They spun on their heel and marched away, in the exact opposite direction from the way I wanted them to go. 

“Kewan, don’t be stupid!”

“Shut up,  _ you’re  _ stupid!” 

_ You’re going the wrong way. _

“You shut up too, just because you’re Amena’s...parent, or whatever, that doesn’t mean you can tell me what to do!”

This is why I normally let ART deal with the adolescent humans.

_ If you don’t turn around right now, the shuttle is going to leave without us and we’ll be stuck here.  _ I pushed my timer into their feeds: 16:07, already past our original departure time.  _ We have 38 minutes until launch.  _

That shut them up. For a second.

Amena swore. “Kewan, come  _ on.”  _

“Ughh!” They turned around to glare at her. “Fine. I just want to look in this one last room.” They pulled open the door and stepped through without looking. 

And fell into an abandoned mineshaft. 

* * *

_ 16:09, Local Planetary Time  _

Fortunately for my anxiety and Kewan’s skull, it wasn’t a very deep mine shaft. Just deep enough to make the humans scream and me sprint at full speed down the last hallway. It took a subjective eternity, but it must not have been that long because Amena had only just leaned over to shine her light down when I arrived. 

“Stand back.” I picked her up and moved her out of the way; she was shaking, and there was definitely traumatized human protocol I needed to run through in a minute, but first I had to deal with the maybe-dead human. Who wasn’t dead, based on the swearing coming from the hole in the ground.

“Status report?” Yeah, I probably should have said something nicer, but I’m not nice and this human was really pissing me off.

“It’s...ahhh, my ankle!” They whimpered and curled up around the injured appendage.

Great. Just what I needed. “Don’t move.”

Climbing into an abandoned mineshaft, while not on the top of my list of favorite things (I don’t even like watching serials where people do that) wasn’t a problem. Climbing out with an injured human on my back...let’s just say it was much lower on the list, and I will probably delete it from my memory as soon as I no longer need it for Kewan’s medical report. It took enough minutes that by the time we got out and collected Amena, we had a problem. 

Well. Another problem.

_ 16:24, Local Planetary Time _

_ SecUnit, where are you? I’ve delayed the shuttle but we can’t wait much longer, the launch window is closing.  _ Iris’s voice over the feed didn’t  _ sound  _ panicked, which was good because I was panicking enough for both of us.

_ Clients successfully retrieved. One minor injury is slowing our progress,  _ my buffer said _.  _ With the sudden return of feed access, I was hit by a backlog of messages from the local SecSystem and I needed all my processing power to sort through them. I followed the canned response with drone footage: Me, carrying Kewan on my back, going as fast as I could without leaving Amena behind. Then I turned my attention to SecSystem to find out how much trouble we were in.

The short answer: we were fucked. All the exterior weather alerts were going off, telling me what I already knew from my countdown timer—the storm was coming, fast. Worse, the facility was going into lockdown mode to prepare. It was all standard procedure, to keep the humans in place so no one did something stupid like wandering outside in a dust storm cold enough to freeze their fluids. Normally I approve of that kind of thing, but right now it meant the system had sealed the doors we needed to go through to leave and meet the shuttle.  _ Iris, prepare for launch. _

_ What? No! You still have time! _

_ Outer facility doors are sealed. Leaving now would compromise security.  _ I sent the countdown timer again, and the launch window.  _ Another shuttle can retrieve us when it clears.  _ It wouldn’t be long, by planetary cycle standards. The humans wouldn’t have time to get too hungry. By  _ my  _ standards it would be excruciating, but this was one of those times when Murderbot’s feelings were a low priority. 

I could tell Iris wanted to say a lot of things in response to that—she was going to lecture me later, and probably get ART to help—but the choice was clear. Get the whole shuttle of humans to safety, come back later for the two humans and a secunit who were  _ also  _ safe, just in the wrong place. 

So after a long pause, she said,  _ Acknowledged. Kewan’s injury can wait? _

I didn’t have access to a MedSystem, but the continued swearing and lack of blood were good signs.  _ It can wait. _

_ Right. We’ll send someone for you as soon as we can.  _ She withdrew from the feed, probably so she could order the shuttle launch. I thought that was the end of it, but then—

_ Secunit? Stay safe. Peri is going to be SO upset. _

ART was going to be  _ pissed.  _ At me, once it realized I had fucked up and lost two humans. It was probably going to be worried, too, but I wouldn’t be around for that part.  _ Don’t let it raze the planet while I’m gone,  _ I said. 

Iris said,  _ Ha,  _ and withdrew from the feed.

Which left me alone with two adolescent humans. Great.

“What are you doing? Why did we stop?” Amena had run ahead, but she turned back when she realized I wasn’t following her. “There’s still time before…”

“No, there isn’t. The doors are sealed.” 

“What?!” Amena and Kewan both started talking at once, asking questions in increasingly loud voices. I tuned them out and started walking again. The interior doors were all sealed too, cutting the vault off from the research facility where the resident humans would be. I could probably have blasted through one, given enough time—they were thicker than anything I’d encountered on a station—but I’d just spent all day listening to the learning module content as the humans went through them. The vault was carefully built to insulate its contents from any outside changes. Putting holes in the wall wouldn’t help that, and making the local humans angry wouldn’t help my humans. So we were on our own until the lockdown lifted.

By the time I found the place I was looking for and turned my attention to what the humans were doing, they had stopped asking me questions and gone back to arguing.

“We could have made it back on time if you weren’t always complaining and distracting me! But—”

“Well we wouldn’t have been down here at  _ all  _ if you  _ ever  _ listened to me, it’s your own fault that—”

Right. I was supposed to be dealing with this, somehow. (One of these days I should download a real trauma support module, but then humans might expect me to listen to their problems, which, no.) Since I only know what the shitty company modules and serials have taught me, I focused on a problem I could solve. “Sit down,” I said to Kewan, and put them on the ground before they could argue. They yelped when they tried to put weight on their ankle, then gripped my arm so they could lower their body into a sitting position. I set my bag on the floor and opened it. “You too, Amena.”

“Oh, so you’re talking to me now?” she asked. “What were you doing, why did you cut me off?” I had a string of unanswered messages from her on the feed.

“I was busy finding a place to wait out the storm,” I said. Also sweeping the rest of the vault for potential threats, compiling my facility footage into an apology file for ART, and watching an episode of  _ Sanctuary Moon,  _ but she didn’t need to know that _.  _

Amena guessed anyway. “You were ignoring us.” She watched me take the portable med pack out of my bag, but didn’t offer to help as I looked through it for painkillers and something to stabilize Kewan’s injury.

“Were you saying anything important?” In the feed, I said,  _ Paragraph 5, subheading d.  _

_ It’s not a personal problem if we’re all about to die because of Kewan’s stupidity!  _

We weren’t going to die. Probably. My risk assessment module didn’t think so, at least. But both humans were showing signs of stress and fatigue. So I attached the self-sizing wrap to Kewan’s ankle, handed them a painkiller, and retrieved the meal packs Iris gave me. “Here.”

Kewan shook their head. “No, I can’t, my body can’t digest—”

“Iris sent it for you,” I cut in, “and she’s familiar with your medical file. Eat it, or let your glucose levels crash until your pancreatic augment adjusts, I don’t care.” I passed the other one to Amena.  _ ART says you get cranky when you need to eat. _

_ So? You don’t ever need to eat, what’s your excuse?  _ Amena retorted. She opened her meal pack.  _ Anyway, if you think I get hangry, Kewan is way worse. _

She was probably right; Kewan was staring at me, food untouched. “Why do you  _ know  _ that?” they demanded. “That’s not in my public information, I only told the teaching crew and a few friends. Did Amena tell you? I thought—”

“No, you didn’t,” Amena said, “You never think about anything, you just keep  _ talking.  _ If you stopped to use your brain, you’d know why the  _ security consultant _ who’s in charge of our  _ safety  _ has read your medical file. Shut up, eat your lunch, and leave Third Mom alone.” She took her own advice, chewing her food deliberately and glaring at Kewan. After six very long seconds, Kewan finally opened their meal pack too.

While the humans were occupied, I ran another security check. I didn’t really need to; there wasn’t anything in this room except stacks of boxes, which according to the inventory file were full of spare parts and equipment. I’d chosen it because it was small, had a door that sealed, and was kept at a slightly higher temperature than the seed storage rooms. 

Not high enough, though. After Amena finished her food, she started to shiver and wrapped her arms around her knees. She leaned toward me, not close enough to touch but definitely still closer to me than to Kewan. They had moved on from glaring at Amena and were now refusing to look at either of us, poking at the last of their meal pack. It was quiet, which would have been nice if my shitty excuse for a human trauma protocol wasn’t insisting I do something about this. 

I didn't want to talk to the humans about why they were fighting; I would rather tear my own hand off than willingly start a conversation about emotions. Amena would probably tell me later anyway unless I stopped her. But being cold for long periods of time isn’t good for humans, even healthy adolescents. They were going to get sick, and ART would get mad at me, and Amena would be walking around for a week with fluids leaking out of her face. (Medsystems can fix a lot, but human immune systems are sensitive). I didn’t want them to get sick, and I didn’t want them to go into shock. So I did the only thing I could do: I upped my body temperature and said to Amena,  _ You can sit closer if you want.  _

She raised her head to look at me, surprised.  _ What? _

_ You’re shivering, and you don’t have your enviro suit.  _ The heavy cold-weather outer layers had been left by the entrance.  _ Your body temperature is dropping. _

Amena blinked, then moved closer, still careful not to touch.  _ It is kinda cold. _

_ Ideal temperatures for long-term seed storage, not for humans.  _ Either she hadn’t understood what I meant, or she was going to make me specifically say it.  _ You can...lean on me.  _

Amena sent me a bunch of  _ surprised-face  _ amusement sigils.

_ Only because you’re cold! This is an emergency situation and relates to your safety. It’s not a breach of contract.  _ She read the no-hugging clause in my contract too, so she should know that already. 

_ Oh, well fine, if it’s contractually necessary,  _ Amena said. She leaned against my side.  _ Wait until I tell ART we cuddled for warmth. _

_ Don’t you dare. _

That made Amena laugh. Kewan glanced up at us, saw Amena lay her head on my shoulder, and looked sharply away. Amena stopped laughing.

Great. This part was going to be even more awkward.  _ Tell them to come over here too. _

_ What? No!  _ Amena pulled back slightly so she could scowl at the side of my head.  _ I’m not talking to them, you do it. _

_ Absolutely not. _

_ Why not? It was your idea! _

_ It’s emergency protocol! And Kewan doesn’t know I can raise my body temperature on purpose, they’ll be suspicious. _

_ I didn’t know you could do that either,  _ Amena grumbled,  _ just tell them you run hot. _

_ No. _

_ SecUnit… _

“I know you two are talking about me, but you could at least have the decency not to laugh,” Kewan said. “Trust me, I don’t want to be stuck here either, this sucks enough already.”

Oh, great.  _ Amena, please. _

_ Ugh, fine!  _ She sighed loudly. “We’re not laughing at  _ you,  _ Kewan. Security Consultant Sree never laughs at anything.”

Apparently she  _ did  _ memorize my fake personnel file.

“Then what were you laughing at?” 

“I was laughing at Sree, it wants you to come over and sit with us but it’s too shy to ask.”

_ Excuse me? _

_ Hey, if you want me to do this, I’m doing it my way.  _

Kewan eyed us suspiciously. “Why would you want me over there?”

I kept my eyes pointed at their hairline and said, “It’s standard protocol in low-temperature environments. You and Amena will be warmer if we all sit together.” I’m not sure why I didn’t just say that in the first place. 

Kewan crossed their arms and set their jaw. “Thanks, but I’m fine.”

Oh, right, that’s why. 

“Don’t be stubborn, Kewan! Just because we didn’t find your alien plant—”

“I’m not being stubborn! I don’t need your help, leave me alone!”

_ Enough.  _ I spoke into both of their feeds, and did my best impression of ART’s looming. Surprisingly, both of them stopped talking.  _ Kewan, if you can stand, come over here. If not, I’ll carry you. Amena, stop picking fights with them. _

I really didn’t think that would work, but Kewan limped over to us and Amena didn’t say anything, even when Kewan sat on my other side with their arms still folded. Apparently since I’d started this, they expected me to keep the conversation going. I made my body take a deep breath like humans do when they’re about to say something important and then...I talked.

I started with the kind of thing I always skip in serials, when the characters don’t know each other yet and are making awkward small talk to get past it. I have a lot of those phrases stored from watching media, and it seemed to work well enough on other traumatized humans. By the time I finished asking Kewan about their family, what they were studying, and what serials they liked, they relaxed enough that they didn’t immediately get up and storm away when I started asking other questions. Why Amena was in such a bad mood, if she missed her family. Why Kewan thought they should mess around with alien plants. Why the two of them thought it was a good idea to wander off on their own.

“I thought...after that one time...it would be good to know about things that can counteract alien remnant contamination,” Amena admitted. “It was pretty stupid, I guess.”

“You’re not stupid,” Kewan said, after a ten second pause. “I’m the one who’s stupid. I...made it all up.”

“You  _ what?”  _

“I wanted to spend time with you! You’re so cool, you’ve been on actual research surveys and you knew half the crew before you got here. Your second mom is like, famous. Everyone wants to be your friend, even the bot pilot and the security consultant who doesn’t talk to  _ anyone _ . I just...wanted you to think I was cool, so I made up a story as an excuse to hang out.”

I made a mental note to tell ART that the other students think it wants to be Amena’s friend.

“What...but...why didn’t you just  _ say  _ that? I like spending time with my friends, and I thought we already  _ were  _ friends. You could have asked me to...hang out.” Amena leaned forward to look past me at Kewan. “Is this why you’ve been so weird and snobby all week?”

Kewan looked down at their hands, and my sensors detected an increase in the temperature of their face and ears. “Yeah, I...yeah. I’m sorry.”

This was definitely starting to get into the kinds of emotions I prefer to fast forward through. Amena must have noticed, because she stood up and moved to sit on the other side of Kewan. “Let’s...talk. The two of us. In the feed.” She glanced at me and added,  _ in our  _ private  _ feed. _

_ I have no desire to be part of that conversation,  _ I assured her. 

_ Oh? You were pretty involved for a while there.  _

_ Emergency protocol. Paragraph 5, subheading e: “In an emergency, Security Consultant Sree may exercise its judgement to initiate conversations of a personal nature for security purposes.” _

_ Okay, sure.  _ Amena sent me a  _ winking-face  _ amusement sigil.  _ As long as it was for security purposes.  _ She withdrew from the feed before I could respond. 

I settled in to watch  _ Sanctuary Moon _ and try not to think about how much ART was going to make fun of me for this.

* * *

By the time the lockdown lifted, the humans had fallen asleep, with Amena leaning on Kewan’s shoulder and Kewan leaning on mine. It was awkward and uncomfortable, but their body temperatures were at an acceptable level and both of them needed a rest period. When SecSystem sent me the all-clear, I woke them up and got them moving toward the areas meant for human habitation. They both seemed happier; Amena kept making jokes, and Kewan was smiling a lot. 

“Security Consultant Sree,” they said, as we were putting on our enviro suits to meet the shuttle, “Your name is kind of like the one character from  _ Legions of the Sun,  _ isn’t it?”

In our private feed, I said,  _ Amena, what did you tell them? _

_ Nothing private! I may have made a few suggestions about how they could get to know you better, that’s all. They think you’re cool, and they also like to watch serials. _

Kewan was very wrong about that, but I  _ did  _ like to watch serials.

“Istarta Sree, yes,” I said out loud. Then, “You watch  _ Legions of the Sun?”  _

“Of course! The plot isn’t that realistic, but the characters are—wait, so you  _ do  _ watch it?”

“Now you’ve done it,” Amena muttered, but she winked at me behind Kewan’s back. 

I ignored her. By the time we reached the shuttle and were on our way back to ART, I had learned that not only had Kewan watched a lot of the same media I had, but they also had a lot of serials I _hadn’t_ seen and had, tragically, never seen an episode of _Sanctuary Moon._ They also had a number of wrong opinions about _Legions of the Sun_ and _Timestream Defenders Orion,_ which we were going to have to talk more about later. I started a new file, one I would probably share with ART once the humans were safe and everything settled down. _AdolescentHumanMediaEducation.file_

The teaching part still isn’t my favorite, but clearly  _ someone  _ needs to do it.

**Author's Note:**

> Because I am a big nerd who works at a library, I was reading a book about weather on the day Iztarshi's Tumblr post crossed my dash. It's kind of a weird combination of art book/anthropological study/passionate plea for people to care about the earth and its changing climate called _Thunder & Lightning: Weather Past, Present and Future_ by Lauren Redniss. The "Cold" chapter was about the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which you can also read about in _Seeds on Ice: Svalbard and the Global Seed Vault_ by Cary Fowler, with photographs by Mari Tefre. I know the seed vault part was purely incidental to the rest of the plot, but like I said, nerd.
> 
> Also I gave Kewan two of my bullshit autoimmune conditions because I felt like it, pancreas augments ftw!


End file.
